


Should Have, Could Have - Wouldn't Have

by FanficCornerWriter19



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Effusive Tagger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Friendship, Grief, Healing, Help, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, Love, Mal Oretsev Dies, Multi, Sorry Not Sorry, and I will give it to them, basically everything, because all these precious children need love, but hey, i'll just ... go there now, mainly platonic - Freeform, still a fair bit, they need it so badly, well okay maybe not all that much angst, will add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficCornerWriter19/pseuds/FanficCornerWriter19
Summary: Alina's done it. She's killed the Darkling (and killed Mal in the process). When that raspy breath is drawn on the Fold, it's the herald of a life she never expected. A story of grief, loss, healing, and guiding; Alina never knew what happened to turn Aleksander Morozova into the Darkling. Through his nightmares and his halting words, she finds out. And while she becomes the keeper of his pain, he becomes the keeper of hers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this idea has been stewing in my mind since I finished 'Ruin and Rising' - which I finished late November of last year, thereabouts: What if the Darkling had lived instead of Mal?
> 
> To be honest, I would've been okay with Mal, if he'd been written better. I think Leigh Bardugo's main focus was on the Darkling, Alina, and Nikolai, as well as other more influential characters. Mal's good characteristics are overshadowed by his bad characterization. He's put into the story as Morozova's third amplifier, and I get that he's necessary, but making him a character almost completely dependent on Alina for definition was a bad choice, if it was a choice at all.
> 
> Anyway, enough rambling! Point is: I. Do not. Like. Malyen Oretsev. 
> 
> So this picks up just after Alina kills the Darkling (that whole scene about 'no grave' and 'say my name' - yeah, that crap still happens). The first two paragraphs were taken verbatim from the book, so you should be able to match them.
> 
> All the characters and the wonderful world of the Grisha trilogy belong to Leigh Bardugo. I just like to play with them sometimes. Enjoy!

The Soldat Sol were cheering, letting light blaze around them in glorious arcs as they burned the Fold away. Some of them had climbed up on the Darkling’s glass skiffs. Others had formed a line, bringing the beams of light together, sending a cascade of sunlight speeding through the thinning scraps of darkness, unraveling the Fold in a rippling wave.

They were crying, laughing, joyous in their triumph, so loud that I almost didn’t hear it—a soft rasp, fragile, impossible. I tried to keep it out, but hope came at me hard, a longing so acute I knew its end would break me.

Tamar swore, and her brother cursed in such foul language I almost covered my ears and howled at them to stop. But if I had, I wouldn’t have heard that sound in the midst of it – that slow, thready sound. The sound of a breath that clung to life, not yet ready to leave it.

Hope sang in my heart as I knelt to Mal, but he wasn’t breathing. He was really and truly dead; skin cooling, limbs and muscles stiffening. Joy turned to disappointment turned to bone-crushing sorrow, and as our world—Mal’s and mine—crashed and burned, I buried my face in Mal’s chest and wept, blind to everything but my own grief.

For just one moment.

A familiar voice rent my self-erected shield of sadness. “Alina.”

It was the Darkling.

I looked up, broken and angry, and there he was, the same as ever: pale and flawless except for the faint scar lines on his face. Something was missing, though, something that didn’t include his physical features.

I realized it in the same moment he cried again for help – he had lost his authoritative voice. The Darkling had leeched away, and in his place, pleading for my mercy, knelt Aleksander. His voice was weak, as though one whisper could shatter the sound, and he was even paler than he should be. I could tell it was all he could do to keep himself conscious, let alone upright. The bloody, shadow-wrapped knife was clutched by clammy fingers.

The twins stood above, their weapons shining in the new light. Tolya raised his, and I shouted, instinctively, “Stop!”

They looked at me as if I was mad. I probably was.

“Alina,” the Darkling pleaded. I noticed that the blood still stained his lips, his chin.

“What happened to you?” I demanded. “Can’t you summon your shadows and defend yourself?”

He shook his head and looked at me. I realized that the whirlwind of anguish, shock, and fury that had seized him in his last minutes had still not let him go, and he was moments away from a complete breakdown. “I tried,” he said, weakly. The black-robed arms opened wide, then slammed together like I’d seen so many times before.

Nothing happened.

It was strange, to see no shadows leaping to his command. “I’m powerless.” Something about the forlorn quality in his voice reminded me just how alone I was. Tamar and Tolya exchanged shocked glances, and I, sensing their wariness and anger, suggested, “Go tend to the wounded.”

They obeyed without a noise.

“Mal is dead,” I rapped out, dully. If I could summon, I would, and cut him in half while he was helpless, but I was just as powerless as he was, and too empty—without Mal, without my power—to do it. It was a numb sort of rage, and it burned in my blood like poison. “You killed him. You should have died instead. Not him.” I was aware of the tears rolling down my cheeks, and I shoved my arm to my eyes to cool the stinging.

He was silent, and I hated him for that silence. Finally he said, “I don’t regret living.”

“Promise me one thing,” I snarled. “No matter how much longer you live, whether you have power or not, you _will_ try your hardest to prevent anything like this”—I  gestured all around us, pointedly not looking at Mal’s broken body—”ever happening again. You will _never_ take a life again, whatever your goal may be.”

He was silent.

“Promise me!”

The Darkling gazed at me with an awful quiet, his bleak gray eyes intensely focused on me and me alone. “I promise,” he whispered at last, though I strained to hear it.

“Swear it on your life.” The raw steel edge in my voice threatened to slice him open if he didn’t.

“I swear it on my life,” he said, and I recognized the tone. I remembered it in Mal, in the tight way he conducted himself around Nikolai. I remembered it in Sergei, in the Spinning Wheel before he betrayed us, as he mourned Marie. I remembered it in Misha, when I invited him to eat and he refused to just after his mistress had plunged herself over the mountain, taking her son’s monsters with her. The Darkling was holding himself together, but one touch and he would fly apart.

I could do nothing but stare as his call echoed in the empty shell that used to be Alina Starkov. I did nothing but stare as his eyes swept the gray sands of what had once been the Shadow Fold. Dead and dying lay everywhere, clogging the air with the scent of stagnation. The wounded were being placed carefully on stretchers by medics whose boots were stained red with blood and streaked gray with dirt. The cheering of the Soldat Sol had faded into murmurs as they saw to the injured and the deceased.

The Darkling curled up on himself, his black _kefta_ engulfing him. He suddenly looked small, and the thought nearly made me smile. The Darkling was intimidating, menacing, and merciless. The boy I now faced was defeated, lost, and broken. It was ridiculous to think they were one and the same—except they were. The man who stared out at what remained of the Fold with haunted eyes was the same one who taught me about steel and power and ruin.

“Where are the Grisha?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I answered hollowly. I laughed, and it was not a happy sound. “I was a bit busy killing a terrifying tyrant who didn’t know how to stay dead.”

“Are they all that are left?”

He wasn’t just asking. He was begging. _Please don’t let them be the only ones left. Please don’t tell me that what I’ve done is this bad._

For he loved Ravka too, didn’t he? Though his crimes were many and bloody, they existed because he looked at a Ravka that was spilling out of the seams and he wanted to fix it. He loved his country and ultimately wanted the best for those who lived in it.

The Darkling, I now understood, must once have been like Nikolai—hopeful, determined, charismatic; one-minded in his pursuit of a united, peaceful Ravka.

“Yes. I think they are.” After a short pause, I added, mockingly, “ _Moi soverenyi._ ”

As we looked out at what remained of the Fold, I answered myself: _merzost._

Magic. Abomination.

Mal was dead because of it.

The Darkling’s voice startled me out of my haze.

“Use my name,” he requested softly, never meeting my eyes. “I am no Darkling. Call me by my true name.” I was almost surprised. I’d thought he hated the name, what with it being so common, but although I could acknowledge that using a common name prevented recognition, I didn’t know why that name in particular.

At last, I sighed. “All right, Aleksander.”

I surveyed the lifeless plains again. They were as empty as I felt. No power, no Mal. Nothing. I’d just murdered the one man in the world who’d ever truly loved me, and the only one I had ever loved, losing my power in the process.

Something in me shivered and trembled, and beside me I heard a sniff. I turned to see the Darkling—Aleksander, he was Aleksander—gripping handfuls of sand and shudder as another sob wracked his body. “I never meant—”

I cut him off brusquely. “Of course you didn’t. But you did it anyway. _Merzost_ always has a price, and Ravka has paid yours.” I’d paid very heavily for mine. I hoped to all the Saints that the Darkling—Aleksander—knew how much of a mistake tampering with creation was. I hoped it twisted like a knife in his nonexistent heart.

“I did this.” He pushed himself to his feet and looked all around, his eyes melting like orbs of metal. With a sudden cry, he collapsed to his knees and sucked in a sharp breath. “ _I did this._ ”

I couldn’t even come up with a caustic remark for the occasion.

I could recognize a breakdown when I saw one. He wasn’t trembling or screaming or even properly weeping, but he was breaking like I was broken. Something primal inside me whispered, _Fix it_.

I wished I could hate him again, push him away and leave him to die at the hands of the twins or the soldiers I’d brought with me, but I was long past hating him. Loathing him, despising him, I could do, if only in my most anguished moments; however, after seeing him like this I almost pitied him.

There was anger in the way he clenched his fists full of sand. There was fear in the way he curled up. Then he stood, his face clear and calm. “Leave me.”

The girl I had once been would have wondered what was wrong because of the careful control in his tone. The girl I’d become recoiled, surprised at how much the Darkling sounded like a wounded toddler, saying, _Go away_. He was angry. He was afraid. He was devastated. 

“I won’t,” I found myself saying, too tired to wrap it up in wit.

“Leave.”

“Are you always this much like a bad-tempered child, or do you just like me very much?”

The Darkling began to march away, but I tugged him back. “You’re not leaving now,” I said steadily, surprising even myself. “I don’t know how or why you’re still alive, but I want to know.”

Another bitter chuckle escaped him. “As if I know.” But his eyes flickered to Mal.

I looked.

My first love and my only. His expression was peaceful, but—how’d I never notice? His eyes were fixed on the spot where the Darkling—Aleksander, I needed to remember he was Aleksander—had lain dying. I had a prickling suspicion about why it was Aleksander who lived when it was Mal I ordered the twins to save.

“I think _I_ know why,” I said, grimly.

Zoya came our way. “Starkov! We’re ready.” She stopped when she saw Mal’s dead body, and her eyes narrowed when they landed on the Darkling. He lifted his chin, staying stubbornly upright.

The Squaller whirled on me. “What is _he_ doing, _alive?_ ” she hissed.

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. He just pulled my knife out of his chest.” It wasn’t a lie. He must have, somehow.

Before I could blink, Aleksander had snatched something out of the air and slung it back at Zoya, contempt twisting his face. She slowed it down and took it, shock tinting her expression. Two heartbeats passed before I realized what had just happened.

Zoya Nazyalensky had just tried to kill the Darkling.

Said Darkling caught the knife and tossed it back at her. Trembling from loss of blood and only half-lucid.

His eyes flickered to me, and I ordered, in my most commanding Sun-Summoner voice, “Zoya, stop. He’s not the same person.”

“Says who? A Darkling is a Darkling!”

“It was only ever me,” Aleksander said boldly. “I was every Darkling that has ever existed—the _only_ Darkling that has ever existed.” Now why had he done that? Maybe he liked to see Zoya’s jaw drop as much as I did. It just about hit the sand, and I thought I saw a shadow of amusement in the sharp, scarred face.  

“It’s true,” I chimed in, feeling a little bit lighter for the burr in her sock.

Zoya threw her hands up. “Tamar and Tolya are coming back this way,” she told me. “You had better decide what to do with _that_ one”—she jerked her head at her former master—“before they come.”

“It seems easy enough,” Aleksander murmured. “Aleksander is such a common name.” In one swift movement he shed his black _kefta_ , took a cloak from one of the fallen, and put the hood up. “ _Sankta Alina_ ,” he echoed, hollowly, and then laughed.

Somehow it was different; it wasn’t the Darkling’s detached, dark laughter. It was a lovely, youthful sound, the sound of a boy who found something funny. I didn’t know what to think, though I was pleased that Zoya didn’t either.

Aleksander swayed again. His eyes widened as he stared at Mal’s open eyes, which were still gazing at what might have been his death-place also. His lips formed a silent O as the gray orbs took in the scene. Seeing the Darkling so vulnerably shocked—seeing the Darkling grieve and halt, for even just a second—was even more shocking that seeing him laugh.

He picked his way over, and closed Mal’s eyes. He said something, though I couldn’t make out what. Finally, he pushed himself to his feet, planting them firmly on the sands. “I know how he did it.”

“Did what?” I had a sneaking suspicion what he meant.

The Darkling sounding dazed was yet another surprise I wasn’t prepared for, and yet he did. “His life was returning, and somehow, for some reason, he gave me some of it, unaware that the breath he shared with me was his last. What is the connection?”

“What?”

“How were you able to nearly—actually—kill me with just a knife coated in a tracker’s blood, even if it was Grisha steel?”

A laugh bubbled from my lips unbidden. He didn’t know! “Your mother had a sister once,” I murmured. “An _otkazat’sya_ sister. She killed her with the Cut, but Morozova brought her back to life¾ _merzost_. That was how she became the third Morozova amplifier. Mal is her descendant.”

His features writhed in confusion. Even in his reduced state he struggled to grasp what Mal was, completely. “So the tracker—Oretsev—is my cousin?”

“I suppose that’s it,” I said, wryly, and it hit me again that this was a dead Mal we were talking about. The grief struck me hard in the face, and it _stung_. And Aleksander! Couldn’t I blame him for Mal’s death? Was he truly the Darkling? Or was he a different man entirely? I stuffed my face in my sleeve, willing the tears not to fall.

“Alina?”

I sniffled harder. A trembling hand touched my shoulder, and my hands parted to reveal Aleksander: confused, lost, unsure how to proceed in this new turn of events.

Then he collapsed, his body thudding heavily against the ground.

I rushed over to him, fearing that Mal’s enormous sacrifice hadn’t been enough. But Aleksander was alive, if just barely. His eyes cracked open a slit; his breathing was brittle but his skin was warm.

I looked back at Mal, and I gave him a vow in place of one I’d never gotten to make. “I’ll take care of him, Mal,” I promised. “You must have really wanted him to live—or at least fix his stupid mistakes.” I laughed, an empty chuckle. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t waste this chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 17 Nov 2018: Changes to the beginning of the story; the interaction seemed a bit forced to me. Added a few descriptions. Deleted a few verbatim phrases because I felt they weren't working for the chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They make it to Tomikyana, and Alina and Aleksander have a few talks.

Zoya commandeered one of the Darkling’s glass skiffs effortlessly, keeping the curious Soldat Sol distracted as the twins loaded us onboard, hidden by heavy cloaks and _kefta_. Mal’s body was wrapped in the robes of one of the fallen Inferni. I would bury him as he deserved, near Keramzin where we both grew up. I didn’t know if that was what he would’ve wanted.

The Squallers—Zoya, Nadia, and Adrik, all of them alive and as whole as they’d been when the battle began—filled the black sails and carried us over the dead sands as fast as their power would allow.

Aleksander sagged against the rim of the skiff, some distance away from me. I could tell by the way he clenched his fists and his jaw that he was in terrible pain, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Mal was dead, and it was all his fault. Somewhere on the skiff, I heard Nikolai talking, his voice husky and damaged by whatever dark thing had used him. I wanted to go to him; see his face, make sure he was all right. He must have broken bones after that fall. But I’d lost a lot of blood, and I found myself slipping away, my weary mind eager for oblivion. As my eyes began to slide shut, I grabbed Tolya’s hand.

“I died here. Do you understand?” He frowned. He thought I was delirious, but I needed to make him hear. “This was my martyrdom, Tolya. I died here today.”

“ _Sankta_ Alina,” he said softly, and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, a courtly gesture, like a gentleman at a dance. I prayed to all the real Saints that he understood.

* * *

I was determined that no one know that I or the former Darkling were still alive. Tolya and Tamar, bless them, took my message to Genya, and they acted accordingly. They got us back to Tomikyana and stashed us in the barn, tucked away with the cider presses in case the Soldat Sol returned.

That vow to Mal was all that kept me alive, one minute, one hour at a time. Mal’s dead body kept reminding me of the future that had been ripped away from us. Even though we knew it could end the way it did, nothing hurt more than the reality.

Aleksander, as I and the rest were learning to call him, drifted in and out of consciousness, usually strong enough to talk and stubborn enough to try and sit up despite the medical opinion of everyone else. The only ones who knew who he really was were me, Tolya, Tamar, and Genya, who’d had to work on him to render him unrecognizable.

She had done a very good job. The face that now confronted me was only familiar through the gray eyes. His skin was tanner than it had ever been, his hair was just a shade lighter than its natural color, his nose a tad blunter, and his mouth a little wider, but it changed his countenance so entirely he looked like a completely different person.

I felt guilty for lying to them, but I knew what they would do if they knew, so I kept it secret. Besides, it was kind of funny to see how easily they interacted with him when they thought he was just another survivor who managed to get ahold of me. He himself seemed surprised at their laid-back familiarity. I don’t think anyone had talked to him like that in years.

Sometimes on those long watches I wondered why Mal had kept him alive. The Darkling had certainly done him no favors, so why should the disgraced tracker allow his enemy to live?

Maybe he saw something of himself in Aleksander. I didn’t know and I never would.

Nikolai had been cleaned up and polished, as had our story. It was simple enough; he had been the Darkling’s prisoner, set for execution on the Fold, but with the help of the Sun Summoner, he vanquished the Darkling and banished the Fold. Our perfect tragic ending closed the myth of _Sankta_ Alina: the Sun Summoner had died to save Ravka and its new King.

There would be no trouble getting people to believe it. Few people knew the truth of what had happened. The battle had been a confusion of violence waged in near darkness, and I suspected the Darkling’s Grisha and _oprichniki_ would be too busy running or begging for royal pardons to dispute this new version of events.

Tomikyana whirled past in a blur. The smell of apples. The rustling of pigeons in the eaves. The plodding of hoofbeats. At some point Genya came to visit, and the dark ridges on her ruined face were gone. The scars remained, and so did the eyepatch, but there was no evidence that marked it as _nichevo’ya_ work.

“Your shoulder too,” she said with a smile. “Scarred, but not nearly so frightening.”

“Your eye?” I asked.

“Gone for good. But I’ve grown rather fond of my patch. I think it lends me a certain rakishness.”

After that, I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Misha was standing in front of me with floury hands.

“What were you baking?” I asked, my words blurry at the edges.

“Ginger cake!”

“Not apple?”

“I’m sick of apples. Do you want to stir the icing?”

I remembered nodding, and then I fell back asleep.

* * *

When my eyes peeled open again, Aleksander was calling my name. “Alina. Alina.”

“What is it?” I slurred, not quite awake yet.

“Zoya and the Shu girl have arrived,” came his voice. _Zoya_ , my tired mind noted. _Not Nazyalensky. Zoya_.

I rose, my head throbbing. “What time is it?”

“I wouldn’t know. It feels like forever,” he answered. He was struggling to sit up, disheveled head propped up against the headboard. There were shadows under his gray eyes that seemed alien even on this flawed face, and a sort of emptiness that had never haunted him before.

According to Zoya and Tamar’s account, the power of the amplifiers had reached even Kribirsk, all the way to the drydocks. The explosion had knocked Grisha and dockworkers from their feet, and mayhem had erupted as light started to pour from every _otkazat’sya_ within range.

As the Fold began to disintegrate, they’d dared to step past its shores and join in the destruction. Some of them had started hunting volcra, rounding them up in the few remaining scraps of the Fold and killing them. It was said some of the monsters had escaped, braving the light to seek deep shadows elsewhere. Now, between the dockworkers, the Soldat Sol, and the _oprichniki_ who had not fled, all that remained of the Unsea were a few dark wisps that hung in the air or trailed over the ground like lost creatures separated from the herd.

When word of the Darkling’s ‘death’ reached Kribirsk, the military camp crumbled into chaos – and in strode Nikolai. He’d simply installed himself in the royal quarters, rounded up First Army captains and Grisha commanders, and started giving orders. The remaining army units had been sent to secure the borders, and messages sent to rally Sturmhond’s fleet, and all this Nikolai apparently managed on no sleep and two fractured ribs.

No one else would’ve had the ability, let alone the nerve – but this was Nikolai Lantsov, who’d waited for this his whole life, and he had a gift for the impossible.

“How is he?” I asked Tamar.

She paused, then said, “Haunted. There’s a difference in him, though I’m not sure anyone else would notice.”

“Maybe,” objected Zoya. “But I’ve never seen anything like it. If he gets any more charming, men and women may start lying down in the street for the privilege of being stepped on by the new Ravkan King. However did you resist him?”

“Turns out I don’t care for emeralds,” I replied.

Zoya rolled her eyes. “Or royal blood, blinding charisma, tremendous wealth—”

“Those are all nice enough, but my real passion is lost causes.” Or just one really. _Beznako_. My lost cause, lost forever.

“You are a fool,” Zoya said, but her hand rested on my shoulder.

Before Tamar and Zoya returned to the main house, Tamar checked our injuries. Aleksander was weak, but given that he’d died and come back to life, that wasn’t surprising. Tamar had healed the bullet wound in my shoulder, and aside from being a bit shaky and sore, I felt good as new. At least, that was what I told them. I could feel the ache of absence where my power had been like a phantom limb.

“You lied,” Aleksander said, when they left. “Didn’t you?”

I didn’t reply.

“I misunderstood,” he said, drawing my attention. “You’re not like me.” The words were halting, as though he was choking on them. “I would not have had such mercy as either you or Oretsev did.” Withdrawing, he curled up in one corner.

Another flash of insight cut into my brain. What turned him was not just _merzost_ , or the hunger for it. It was the aching loneliness of power as well. He was so obsessed with me because he thought he wasn’t alone anymore. With that insight came a crushing realization: there were just so many problems in Aleksander that had festered like so many infected wounds. Even given this second chance, would he hold out against the darkness in his heart and soul?

* * *

They put Mal’s body in the barn beside us until we could travel to Keramzin to bury him. Aleksander seemed to have taken it as his duty to hold a vigil, as every time I woke, he was sitting by Mal. I wanted to shout at him that he had no place there, that he didn’t deserve to be there, but I forced the words down.

Once, I asked, “What did you see?” He was silent. “When –”

“When I died?” He sounded exhausted. Had he stayed awake this whole time?

His answer was a long time coming, and it was slow, stumbling. “I saw nothing, or at least I recall nothing, if I saw anything. All I can remember is the agony—the knife felt like it was carving my heart from my chest—and the betrayal.”

Apprehension prickled at my chest. “You’re lying.”

“No!” The denial… felt _wrong_. I couldn’t say, later, what had given me that impression, but I was absolutely certain, in that moment, that if he wasn’t outright lying, he was withholding the whole truth.

“You are.”

Silence. Then he said, “I am. I’m not ready to tell you.”

Anger bubbled in my blood. I’d given up so much for him to be here having this argument and he really wanted to play it that way? Once again I wished I could summon, if just to cut him down where he sat.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry he died.”

My head shot up. “What?”

“I’m sorry he died,” he repeated. I had a feeling that was as far as he was willing to go for now. Aleksander had so many issues, so many scars… that statement must’ve cost much to say. But honestly, it wasn’t worth much. Mal was dead and Aleksander couldn’t change that. Besides, it wouldn’t make me any less angry at him.

“All right,” I said shortly, turning away from him.

“Alina?”

“What is it?”

He hesitated. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the rustle of cloth and assumed he was hiding in his cloak again. “Don’t let me be alone.”

He’d said that, didn’t he? Before he died. “There will certainly be no grave,” I replied wryly. Aleksander laughed, but it sounded distracted. He was thinking of something else; I was thinking of Mal.

Why did he give his life for this mess?

_Mal, why?_

_Did you know you would die? Did you exchange his life for yours on purpose, and leave me alone with **him**?_

I heard movement and assumed Aleksander was going to sleep, but then I heard wobbling footsteps and looked up. Aleksander was leaving; he was already halfway to the door. “Where are you going?” I asked, confused.

He turned back to me, and his eyes were still quartz gray. “Loss is loss,” he said simply. “You have the right to grieve alone.”

It hit me that I wasn’t the only one who lost. I felt petty. Harshaw was dead, and so were half of the Soldat Sol, including Ruby. Then there were the others: Sergei, Marie, Paja, Fedyor, Botkin. Baghra. So many lost to this war. The list stretched on and on, and what of their families?

Had any of the fallen been part of families who lost before? Like Aleksander, had they been part of families whose only members were the survivors, gripping life with iron fingers until they themselves let go?

By the time I pulled myself out of my world of grief, Aleksander was gone.

* * *

When he returned he looked dazed and confused, an apple and a jug of water in his hands. He curled up in his corner and took a bite of his apple. The watery crunch echoed throughout the barn, and I looked numbly at him, imagining a much younger Aleksander on the run, hiding out in a barn and eating a stolen apple.

The shadows and the light played across his strangely flawed face. All our power was gone, even the shred of darkness I had briefly been able to command, even the little bit of light he had once been able to coax out of me, and we could no longer bend the shadows or the sun to our will. The void of my power ached almost as much as the void of Mal. But that difference was profound.

Aleksander’s eyes locked onto mine, and his voice inched into my consciousness. Shy, timid, almost hesitant, like deer ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. “The emptiness hurts.”

“…what?”

“I am powerless. As are you.” I recognized his tone as the curious kind of flat that voices get when inflection can make the difference between control and chaos. “I feel it too.”

I was silent. That wasn’t the issue. If only he understood! I wanted to scream that the absence of my light was nothing, _nothing_ to the absence of Malyen Oretsev. I glared at him, but I got a vague feeling that he _did_ understand, somehow, however little.

“A part of me is missing that I never knew was essential to how I perceived myself, until it was gone. I… I don’t feel like myself.” He didn’t meet my eyes; all I could see of his face were his lips, gnawed until they bled. Were we even still talking about power? “Do you?”

He looked vulnerable, but was it real?

Was he telling the truth? Or was he betraying Mal and the chance given him, slipping back into his manipulative, power-hungry ways? I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for him to change, but was it so hard, for him to give it up so soon?

“Are you telling the truth, Aleksander?” I asked quietly.

“I have no power anymore,” he responded, raising his eyes at last. “I have nothing to gain by lying to you.”

I couldn’t deny the truth of that. He knew I was the only one holding back the hell that could crash back onto his shoulders. If he alienated me, he would die. And above all things, the Darkling had wanted to live.

I wondered whether he was deliberately acting up, turning up the drama to earn my pity. He’d manipulated me before; who was to say he wasn’t doing it now?

I resolved to be wary of him, always. I owed it to Mal, even if I was tired of mistrusting. Tired of needing to look over my shoulder, tired of watching for a knife aimed at my back, all because of this man. Most of all, I was tired of him in general. I wanted Mal back.

Aleksander cuddled up under his cloak, though it wasn’t cold and we both knew it wasn’t because he was cold. “Alina?”

“What is it?”

“Good night.” With that, the man, the boy, known to the world as the Darkling and to me as Aleksander Morozova, slept at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 17 Nov 2018: Well. It turns out I've already read the prequel story without knowing it. Okay. Also made several descriptive changes and dialogue changes, mostly because D seemed a bit out of character.
> 
> QUESTION FOR Y'ALL: Why do all the bad boy assholes have 'D' names? Darcy and the Darkling, for two.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang prepare to leave Tomikyana, and Alina suspects Aleksander isn't as healed as he seems.

Mal’s face was no longer visible, as his body was wrapped in a shroud. I talked nonsense about our childhood, when we were just Mal and Alina and nothing else, just the tracker boy and the skinny girl. How simple everything was back then. I asked him why he let Aleksander live. I cried. I screamed.

Finally I noticed Aleksander watching me. If anything, his eyes were… empty. Blank. Not quite sleepy, but reminiscent of it, with their utter indifference. He wanted something, but it was almost like he didn’t care anymore.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Aleksander looked at Mal, at me, where my hand rested on Mal’s lifeless one, and said nothing. I didn’t know what he meant, but I didn’t ask him. There were wounds still too sore to be rubbed, subjects too hurtful to touch.

And I thought knew how Mal had done it. I’d wondered how Tolya and Tamar had brought Mal back, and then how Mal had transferred that life to Aleksander.

Now I thought I understood. Mal had possessed two lives, but only one was rightfully his. The other was stolen, an inheritance wrought from _merzost_ , snatched from the making at the heart of the world and passed from parent to child. It was the force that had animated Morozova’s daughter when her human life had gone, the power that had reverberated through Mal’s bones. His blood had been thick with it, and that stolen shard of creation was what had made him such a remarkable tracker. It had bound him to every living thing. _Like calls to like_.

That was gone now. The life stolen by Morozova and given to his daughter had reached its end. The life Mal had been born with—fragile, mortal, temporary—had been his alone. And he had used the blood on that blade to breathe that life with Aleksander, not knowing that that shared breath was his last and Aleksander’s first in a long, long time.

But it was Mal’s life, not Aleksander’s, which bound the former Darkling to this world, and so the shadows did not recognize what had once been their master. Aleksander was living on borrowed time, time we both knew would run out someday, whether it was seventy years from now or seven hundred.

Morozova couldn’t have known that the person to unlock the secrets of his amplifiers wouldn’t be some ancient Grisha who had lived a thousand years and grown weary of his power. He couldn’t have known that it would all come down to two orphans from Keramzin.

Aleksander went out, and he brought Misha back with him. The young boy was chatting a mile a minute, and I smiled when I realized he didn’t know who he was talking to. There was an interruption when Misha forgot his name, and he looked to Aleksander. The former Darkling canted his head and looked back, before answering, “My name is Aleksander. Don’t forget me, all right? I’m sure you meet a great deal of Aleksanders.”

“Aleksander,” Misha repeated, the name chirruping off his tongue. “All right.”

They talked about anything and nothing, and I had a feeling it was Aleksander’s way of coping with… everything. Misha talked about mundane things, about ginger cake-baking and pigeon-feeding and book-learning. Aleksander listened for all the world like an indulgent older brother, with a small curl to his lips that could almost be a smile, nodding and laughing softly.

When Misha left, Aleksander looked a bit lost.

It hit me. Neither of us owned anything. We didn’t even have the power we were born with, and he had lived centuries with his. As though he’d picked up on my thoughts, he asked, “Are you afraid, Alina?”

Was it strange that I _wasn’t_ afraid?

All the fear had been eaten up by pain and challenge. I was devastated, I was grateful, and I was, perhaps, a little hopeful, but not afraid. Not anymore. “No,” I said; “are you?”

“It’s strange,” he answered. “I never used to be afraid before. And now… now I feel so terrified I can hardly move.” So that was why he curled up in a corner with his cloak wrapped tightly around his body. He was afraid. “Of what?” I queried.

“Everything.” His eyes met mine and for once I saw the pupils blown wide in the darkness and fear. “My power is gone. My—my mother—is—” He struggled to say the words, but I knew.

Aleksander Morozova had always had his power and his mother in his life, and so soon after the loss of the second, he had been stripped of the first. I felt a flash of sympathy for him; we had both lost something too important to say in this shadow war, even if it was his own fault.

I knew he knew it was all his doing. I didn’t need to rub it in his face.

Not long after that, it was time to leave Tomikyana. According to the others, we’d had only one night to recover, but news of the destruction of the Fold was spreading fast, and soon the farm’s owners might return. And even if I was no longer the Sun Summoner, there were still things I needed to do before I could bury _Sankta_ Alina—and my Mal—forever.

* * *

Genya brought us clean clothes. Aleksander ghosted behind the cider presses to change while she helped me put on a simple blouse and the _sarafan_ that went over it. They were peasant clothes, not even military.

She’d once woven gold through my hair at the Little Palace, but now a more radical change was necessary. She used a pot of hematite and a clutch of shiny rooster feathers to temporarily alter its distinctive white color, then tied a kerchief around my head for good measure.

Aleksander returned wearing a tunic and trousers and a coat that looked identical to the one he had huddled in that long night. A black wool cap with a narrow brim covered his dark hair. Such simple garments looked weird, even a little funny, on him, especially with the way he kept glancing down at them as though he didn’t know what to do with them.

Genya wrinkled her nose. “You don’t even look like a farmer.”

“I’ve worn worse,” he replied, shrugging. He cocked his head, looking at me. “Your hair is red.”

“Temporarily.”

“And she’s almost pulling it off,” Genya added, and sailed from the barn. The effects would fade in a few days without her assistance.

Genya and David would travel separately to meet with Grisha gathering at the military camp in Kribirsk. They’d offered to bring Misha with them, but he’d elected to go with me and Aleksander. He claimed we needed looking after. We made sure that his golden sunburst was safely hidden away and that his pockets were stuffed with cheese for Oncat. Then we headed into the gray sands of what had once been the Fold.

It was easy to blend in with the crowds crossing to and from Ravka. There were families, groups of soldiers, nobles, and peasants. Children climbed over the ruins of sandskiffs. People gathered in spontaneous parties. They kissed and hugged, handed around bottles of _kvas_ and fried bread stuffed with raisins. They greeted each other with shouts of “ _Yunejhost!_ ” Unity.

Sometimes I smiled along with them, when I saw something Mal would have loved to see, and other times I blinked the tears away when the echoes reminded me he wasn’t there anymore.

Amid the celebrations, there were pockets of grief like mine. Silence reigned in the crumbling remains of what had been Novokribirsk. Most of the buildings had slumped into dust. There were only dim impressions where the streets had been, and everything had been bleached a lifeless gray. The round stone fountain that had stood at the center of the town looked like a crescent moon, eaten away wherever the Fold’s shadow had touched it. Old men poked at the odd ruins and muttered to each other. Even beyond the fallen town’s edges, mourners laid flowers on the wrecks of skiffs, and built little altars in their hulls.

When we passed that ruin, Aleksander swayed dangerously, and I turned towards him. I hoped that he was feeling some measure of remorse for the indescribable grief he had caused these people—and me. “What?”

“I…” He looked helplessly at the grave-skiffs. “I don’t know what to think.”

“You were wrong to do this to them,” I said, more harshly than I had judged safe.

“I think I understand grief now, but somehow I still don’t feel sorry.” His eyes shone silver. “Is it wrong, that I don’t feel sorry for this? I feel for them, for their losses” —he gestured at the mourners—“but I cannot feel sorry about doing this.”

“You thought it necessary,” I murmured. “I guess you have to have allowances.”

Everywhere, I saw people wearing the double eagle, carrying banners, and waving Ravkan flags. Girls wore pale blue and gold ribbons in their hair, and I heard whispers of the tortures the brave young prince had endured at the Darkling’s hands, and my anger stirred again.

“There’s another thing I do not regret,” Aleksander muttered. “The Lantsov puppy.”

“Nikolai didn’t deserve that from you,” I snapped. “He might be annoying sometimes, but he didn’t deserve to be turned into _nichevo’ya_.”

“I know that, logically,” he replied with difficulty. “It’s… I hate being so emotional.”

I thought I understood.

I heard my name too. Pilgrims were already flooding into the Fold to see the miracle that had occurred and to offer up prayers to _Sankta_ Alina. Once again, vendors had begun setting up carts littered with what they claimed were my finger bones, and my face stared back at me from the painted surfaces of wooden icons. It wasn’t quite me, though. This was a prettier girl, with round cheeks and serene brown eyes, the antlers of Morozova’s collar resting on her slender neck: Alina of the Fold.

No one spared us a second glance. We weren’t nobles. We weren’t Second Army. We weren’t this strange new class of Summoner soldier. We were anonymous. We were tourists. We were a scrawny redheaded girl and a tall black-haired boy in a sea of girls and boys.

In Kribirsk, the party was in full swing. The drydocks were ablaze with colored lanterns. People sang and drank aboard the sandskiffs. They crowded on the steps of the barracks and raided the mess tent for food. I glimpsed the yellow flag of the Documents Tent, and though some part of me ached to return there, to take in the old familiar smells of ink and paper, I didn’t want to.

It had less to do with the possibility of the cartographers recognizing me and more to do with Mal.

I didn’t want to remember.

The brothels and taverns in town were doing a booming business. An impromptu dance was being held in the central square, though just down the street a crowd had gathered at the old church to read the names written on its walls and light candles for the dead. I paused to light one for Harshaw, then another, and another. He would have liked the flames.

Tamar had found rooms for us in one of the more respectable inns. Aleksander, despite looking exhausted, insisted on coming with me, so we left Misha there with promises to return that night. No word had come yet of Misha’s mother, but though the boy seemed hopeful, he didn’t say a thing about it, only solemnly vowed to be good in my absence.

To my shock, Aleksander promised to bring back something for Misha, which the boy loved. He practically beamed at Aleksander, who actually smiled in return. Well, this was new.

I was actually kind of relieved. This way Aleksander wasn’t solely relying on me to keep him sane, which would be exhausting even if I didn’t already have so much to deal with. Aleksander insisted on calling the boy Mikhail, and although it might very well be his real name, he seemed confused about it, choosing instead to accept it as a quirk of this mysterious man whose quiet concern was protection against the evils he didn’t want to know.

“I’m not carrying you back if you faint in the street, just so you know,” I told him, as we went down the stairs.

“Good, because I don’t think that was in my plans,” he replied, cocking the cap over his eyes. His step was light, almost lively against the polished wood of the staircase. Not once did he touch the railing, either; he kept his hands buried in his pockets.  

I looked him up and down. “How are you going to bring something back for Misha? You’re not going to steal, are you?”

“I’m going to buy something.” He glanced sidelong at me. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I had money on my person.”

* * *

We didn’t go directly to the royal barracks, but took a route that led me past where the Darkling’s silk pavilion had once stood. I’d assumed that he would rebuild it, but the field was empty. “Where is it?” I asked Aleksander.

He nodded ahead, in the direction of the Lantsov quarters, and when we reached it, I understood. Aleksander had taken up residence there instead. He’d hung black banners from the windows and the carving of the double eagle above the doors had been replaced with a sun in eclipse. Now workmen were pulling down the black silks and replacing them with Ravkan blue and gold. An awning had been set up to catch plaster as a soldier took a massive hammer to the stone symbol above the door, shattering it to dust. A cheer went up from the crowd. I couldn’t share in their excitement. I understood that, for all his crimes, Aleksander loved Ravka, and only wanted its love in return.

“It’s fine.”

I turned to look at my companion, whose gray eyes sparkled brilliantly in the light. “I know I did it all wrong.” He stared stoically at the cheering multitude, and added, “I’ll stay here for a while. You had better go on; I’ll meet you at the inn with something for Misha.”

I left him there, gazing at the Lantsov quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Aleksander calling Misha 'Mikhail': in Russia, the nickname for Mikhail is Misha, and since Misha is ~eight years old, my headcaon is that his mother and friends probably called him Misha all the time, leading him to assume his name was just Misha when it's Mikhail. He probably can't remember his surname either, if he had one.
> 
> EDIT 17 Nov 2018: A few descriptive changes and all that hoohah. I'm back-editing the whole thing at this point. 
> 
> Hopefully you all enjoyed this installment, and I'll follow up as soon as possible. Tell me what you think! Comments keep writers writing (shameless begging)...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alina visits Nikolai, Genya, and David. And then watches herself burn...

I found a guard near the entry and asked after Tamar Kir-Bataar. He looked down his nose at me, seeing nothing but a scrawny peasant girl, and for a moment, I heard the old Aleksander ¾the Darkling¾say, ‘ _You’re nothing now_ ’. The girl I’d once been would have believed him. The girl I’d become wasn’t in the mood.

“What exactly are you waiting for?” I snapped. The soldier blinked and jumped to attention. A few minutes later, Tamar and Tolya were jogging down the steps to me.

Tolya swept me up in his huge arms.

“Our sister,” he explained to the curious guard.

“ _Our sister?_ ” hissed Tamar as we entered the royal barracks. “She doesn’t look _anything_ like us. Remind me never to let you work intelligence.”

“I have better things to do than trade in whispers,” he said with dignity. “Besides, she _is_ our sister.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “Did I come at a bad time?”

Tamar shook her head. “Nikolai ended meetings early so people could attend the…” She trailed off. I nodded.

They led me down a hall decorated with weapons of war and charts of the Fold. Those maps would have to change now. I wondered if anything would ever grow on those deadened sands, and if Aleksander realized the full extent of what he’d done.

“Will you stay with him?” I asked Tamar. Nikolai had to be desperate for people he could trust around him.

“For a while. Nadia wants to, and there are still some members of the Twenty-Second alive too.”

“Nevsky?”                           

She shook her head.

“Did Stigg make it out of the Spinning Wheel?”

She shook her head again. There were others to ask after, casualty lists I dreaded reading, but that would have to wait.

“I might stay on,” said Tolya. “Depends on—”

“Tolya,” his sister said sharply.

Tolya flushed and shrugged. “Just depends.”

We reached a set of heavy double doors, their handles the heads of two screaming eagles. Tamar knocked.

The room was dark, lit only by the blaze of a fire in the grate. It took me a moment to pick Nikolai out in the gloom. He was seated in front of the fire, his polished boots propped up on a cushioned stool. A plate of food sat beside him, along with a bottle of _kvas_ , though I knew he preferred brandy.

“We’ll be outside,” Tamar said.

At the sound of the door shutting, Nikolai started. He jumped to his feet and bowed. “Forgive me,” he said. “I was lost in thought.” Then he grinned and added, “Unfamiliar territory.”

I leaned back against the door. A lapse. Covered with charm, but a lapse nonetheless. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But I do.” His smile slipped. He gestured to the chairs by the fire. “Join me?”

I crossed the room. The long table was littered with documents and sheaves of letters emblazoned with the royal seal. A book lay open on the chair. He moved it aside and we sat.

“What are you reading?”

His eyes flicked at the title. “One of Kamenski’s military histories. Really, I just wanted to look at the words.” He ran his fingers over the cover; fingers marred with nicks and cuts. Though my scars had faded, Aleksander’s power had marked Nikolai in a different way. Faint black lines still ran along each of his fingers where claws had shoved their way through his skin. He would have to pass them off as signs of the torture he’d endured as the Darkling’s prisoner. In a way, it was true. At least the rest of the markings seemed to have faded.

“I couldn’t read,” he continued. “When I was… I would see signs in store windows, writing on crates. I couldn’t understand them, but I remembered enough to know that they were more than scratches on a wall.”

I settled deeper into the chair. “What else do you remember?”

His hazel eyes were far away, even if they looked at me. “Too much. I … I can still feel that darkness inside me. I keep thinking it will go, but—”

“I know,” I said. “It’s better now, but it’s still there.” _Like a shadow next to my heart_. I didn’t know what that might imply about Aleksander’s (old?) power, and I didn’t want to consider it. “Maybe it will fade in time.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “This isn’t what people want of a king, what they expect from me.”

“Give yourself a chance to heal.”

“Everyone is watching. They need reassurance. It won’t be long before the Fjerdans or the Shu try to move against me.”

“What will you do?”

“My fleet is intact, thank the Saints and Privyet,” he said, referring to the officer he’d left in command when he’d given up Sturmhond. “They should be able to neutralize Fjerda for a time, and there are supply ships already waiting in the harbor with deliveries of weapons. I’ve sent word to every operational military outpost. We’ll do our best to secure the borders. I leave for Os Alta tomorrow, and I have emissaries en route to try to bring the militias back under the King’s flag.” He gave a slight laugh. “My flag.”

I smiled. “Just think of all of the bowing and scraping in your future.”

“All hail the Pirate King.”

“Privateer.”

“Why dance around it? ‘Bastard King’ is more likely.”

“Actually,” I said, “they’re already calling you _Korol Rezni_.” I’d heard it whispered in the streets of Kribirsk: _King of Scars_.

He looked up sharply. “Do you think they know?”

“I doubt it. But you’re used to rumors, Nikolai. And this might be a good thing.” He raised a brow.

“I know you love to be loved,” I said, “but a little fear couldn’t hurt, either.”

“Did the Darkling teach you that?”

“And you. I seem to remember a certain story about a Fjerdan captain’s fingers and a hungry hound.”

“Next time warn me when you’re paying attention. I’ll talk less.”

“ _Now_ you tell me.”

A faint smile tugged at his lips. Then he frowned. “I should warn you—the Apparat will be there tonight.”

I sat up straighter. “You pardoned the priest?”

“I had to. I need his support.” His tone wasn’t apologetic or ashamed, but stern, as though the Apparat could listen in and hear his new King’s admonishments.

“Will you offer him a place at court?”

“We’re in negotiations,” he said bitterly.

I could offer him all the information I had on the Apparat, but I suspected what would help most was the location of the White Cathedral. Unfortunately, Mal was the only one who might have been able to lead us back there, and… well.

Nikolai gave the bottle of _kvas_ an idle turn.

“It’s not too late,” he said. “You could stay. You could come back with me to the Grand Palace.”

“And do what?”

“Teach, help me rebuild the Second Army, rusticate by the lake?”

This was what Tolya had been alluding to. He’d hoped I might return to Os Alta. It hurt to even think about. And it was… too soon. Far too soon.

I shook my head. “I’m not Grisha, and I’m certainly not a noble. I don’t belong at court.”

“You could stay with me,” he said quietly. He twisted the bottle again. “I still need a Queen.”

I rose from my chair and nudged his booted feet aside, settling on the little stool to look up at him. “I’m not the Sun Summoner anymore, Nikolai. I’m not even Alina Starkov. I don’t want to return to court. And besides… it’s too soon.” I took a deep breath. “I can’t. Not after Mal…”

“Mal?” Nikolai sat up. “What happened to him?”

“He… died.” My heart constricted painfully in my chest as I said the word. I had come far enough that I didn’t vaguely want to kill Aleksander every time I laid eyes on him anymore, but I was still at a place where I would exchange him for Mal in a heartbeat.

“But who was¾?” Of course he would notice there was another person with me. A male.

“Aleksander.”

“Who?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want Nikolai to hunt Aleksander down. If Mal had wanted him to live, he would live. “Nobody.” I could tell Nikolai wasn’t convinced, but he moved on.

“But would you consider it? Being at court, I mean. You understand this… thing.” He tapped his chest.

I did. _Merzost_. Darkness. You could hate it and hunger for it at the same time.

“I’d only be a liability. Power is alliance,” I reminded him. “Besides, I’m not going away forever.”

“I do love it when you quote me.” He sighed. “If only I weren’t so damnably wise. And I hope you visit often, because otherwise I’ll have to take rather drastic measures to bask in the light of your presence.”

“You mean you’re going to bother me.”

“I’m hurt, Alina. I’d have thought you knew me better than this.”

“I’ll try.” I reached into my pocket and set the Lantsov emerald on Nikolai’s knee. Genya had given it back to me when we’d left Tomikyana. He picked it up, turned it over. Its stone flashed green in the firelight. “A Shu princess then? A buxom Fjerdan? A Kerch magnate’s daughter?” He held out the ring. “Keep it.”

I stared at him. “How much of that _kvas_ have you drunk?”

“None. Keep it. Please.”

“Nikolai, I can’t.”

“I owe you, Alina. Ravka owes you. This and more. Do good works or commission an opera house or just take it out and gaze at it longingly when you think of the handsome prince you might have made your own. For the record, I favor the latter option, preferably paired with copious tears and the recitation of bad poetry.” His mouth lifted in a smirk. I laughed.

He took my hand and pressed the ring into it. “Take it and build something new.”

I turned the ring over in my hand. “I’ll think about it.”

He rolled his eyes. “What is your aversion to the word _yes_?”

I felt tears rising and had to blink them away. “Thank you.”

He leaned back. “We were friends, weren’t we? Not just allies?”

“Don’t be an ass, Nikolai. We _are_ friends.” I gave him a hard tap on the knee. “Now, you and I are going to settle some things about the Second Army. And then we’re going to watch me burn.”

* * *

On our way to the drydocks, I slipped away and found Genya. She and David were cloistered in a Fabrikator tent on the east side of the camp. When I handed her the sealed letter marked with the Ravkan double eagle, she paused, holding it gingerly, as if the heavy paper were dangerous to the touch.

She ran her thumb over the wax seal, fingers quaking slightly. “Is it…?”

“It’s a pardon.”

She tore it open and then clutched it to her. David didn’t look up from his worktable when he said, “Are we going to jail?”

“Not just yet,” she said. She brushed away a tear. “Thank you.” Then she frowned as I handed her the second letter. “What is this?”

“A job offer.” It had taken some convincing, but in the end Nikolai had seen the sense in my suggestions. I cleared my throat. “Ravka still needs its Grisha, and Grisha still need a safe haven in the world. I want you to lead the Second Army, along with David. And Zoya.”

“Zoya? Are you punishing me?”

“She’s powerful, and I think she has it in her to be a good leader. Or she’ll make your life a nightmare. Possibly both.” I grinned impishly.

“Why us? The Darkling—”

“The Darkling is gone, and so is the Sun Summoner. Either way, Aleksander and I are in no shape to lead.” Genya looked a bit baffled at my referring to the Darkling by name. She probably thought it was another alias. “Now the Grisha can lead themselves, and I want all the orders represented: Etherealki, Materialki, and you—Corporalki.”

“I’m not really a Corporalnik, Alina.”

“When you had the chance, you chose red. And I hope that those divisions won’t matter so much if the Grisha are led by their own. All of you are strong. All of you know what it is to be seduced by power or status or knowledge. Besides, you’re all heroes.”

“They’ll follow Zoya, maybe even David—”

“Hmm?” he asked distractedly.

“Nothing. You’re going to have to go to more meetings.”

“I hate meetings,” he grumbled.

“Alina,” she said, “I’m not so sure they’ll follow me.”

“You make them follow you.” I touched her shoulder. “Brave and unbreakable.”

A slow smile spread over her face. Then she winked. “And marvelous.”

I grinned. “So you accept?”

“I accept.”

I hugged her tight. She laughed, then tugged at a lock of hair that had slipped free from my kerchief.

“Already fading,” she said. “ _His_ must be fading too.” We both knew who she meant when she said _he_. I think she was still a little afraid of Aleksander. “Should we freshen you two up?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

I embraced her once more, then slipped outside into the last scraps of daylight.

* * *

I wended my way back through camp, following the crowd past the drydocks and into the sands of what had been the Unsea. The sun had almost set and dusk was falling, but it was impossible to miss the pyre, a massive mound of birches, their branches tangled like white limbs.

A shiver passed through me as I saw the girl and man laid to rest atop it. The girl’s hair spread around her head in a white halo. She wore a _kefta_ of blue and gold, and Morozova’s collar curled around her throat, the stag’s antlers a silvery gray against her skin. Whatever wire or Fabrikator craft held the pieces together had been hidden from view.

My eyes roved over her face—my face. Genya had done an extraordinary job. The shape was just right, the tilt of the nose, and the angle of the jaw. The tattoo on her cheek was gone. There was almost nothing left of Ruby, the Soldat Sol who would have lived to be a Summoner if she hadn’t perished on the Fold. She’d died an ordinary girl.

Beside Ruby, another Sun Soldier lay in the Darkling’s black _kefta_.

His black hair had been combed back neatly from his forehead, and his graceful hands were folded on his chest. Again, Genya had outdone herself. The face was a perfect replica of Aleksander’s—the sharp, pale cheekbones, brows, and chin, the straight nose, even the faint scar lines scored over an otherwise flawless face. I briefly wondered if the former Darkling had offered himself as a subject for this project. It seemed ridiculous, but this was a flawless copy. Absolutely nothing was visible of the tall Soldat Sol who had been substituted for Aleksander.  

I’d balked at the idea of using their bodies this way, troubled that their families would have nothing to bury. It had been Tolya who convinced me. “They believed, Alina. Even if you don’t, let this be their final act of faith.”

Some in the crowd were complaining that the Darkling had no business sharing a pyre with a Saint. But this felt right to me, and the people needed to see an end to it.

The remaining Soldat Sol had gathered around the pyre, their bare backs and chests emblazoned with tattoos. Vladim was there too, head bowed, the raised flesh of his brand outlined by firelight. Around them, people wept. Nikolai stood at the periphery, immaculate in his First Army uniform, the Apparat at his side. I pulled my shawl up.

A figure sidled up next to me, cloaked in black. I looked at it, and quartz gray eyes startled me from the dim shadow in the hood. “I thought we were meeting at the inn,” I whispered to him.

Aleksander looked away. “I needed to be here.” He said nothing more.

Nikolai’s gaze touched mine briefly from across the circle. He gave the signal. The Apparat raised his hands. The Inferni struck their flints, and fire leapt in brilliant arcs, dancing among the birch branches like little glowing firebirds, throwing off sparks. The tinder smoldered, then caught.

The fire grew, flames blazing, the shimmering leaves of a great golden tree. Around me, the moans and weeping of the crowd grew louder.

 _Sankta_ , they cried. _Sankta Alina_.

My eyes burned with the smoke. The smell was sickly sweet.

 _Sankta Alina_.

No one knew his name to curse or extol, so I spoke it softly, beneath my breath.

“Aleksander,” I whispered. A boy’s name, given up for centuries. Almost forgotten, but forgotten no more. Cold, slender fingers found mine in the sleeve of my cloak and squeezed, whether to give or receive comfort I had no idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to a friend of mine who's reading this and likes it. I bet it's going to surprise her when she realizes the truth behind all this... keep my secret guys!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alina and Aleksander fight over whether or not his ideals are skewed. They end up leaving the argument until the morning, with a lot of things unsaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ye gods! I'm updating again! *gasp*
> 
> But really, I forgot that I hadn't uploaded in a while, and I just assumed I was done with all the chapters and had posted them already. I only realized when I back-edited the others and discovered—to my horror—that Chapters 5-7 weren't here! Oh my God, guys. I'm sorry to keep you hanging!

Misha was delighted with the sweets Aleksander had brought for him, and strangely enough, Aleksander seemed a touch happier for it too. I couldn’t bring myself to share in their joy, however, as even the thought of our next destination brought my loss crashing down around my ears again. We were going to Keramzin.

Botkin, Ana Kuya, and the Grisha instructors would be buried there. And Mal… Mal would be buried there too. My heart lanced within my chest painfully. If losing my power felt like missing a limb, losing Mal felt like losing a soul.

Aleksander’s voice rattled me from my reverie. “Alina?”

“What is it?”

“Will you please walk with me?”

“Why?”

A shudder passed through the frame I had once thought unshakable. Without his commanding air, Aleksander was still magnetic, but not quite so intimidating; his presence was not quite as forceful. “I need to sort my thoughts, and I don’t trust myself enough to go alone.” With this strangely articulate response, he shivered again and ghosted towards the door. “Please…”

I searched my memory for the last time he’d ever said please, let alone in that soft tone. They were surprisingly so few that I reached for them still. I grabbed my cloak and put my hood up, then nodded to Aleksander, who put his hood up and slipped around the door like the shadows he could no longer summon. I shut the door behind us.

We walked to the outskirts of Os Alta; two nondescript travelers drifting through the celebrating crowds. The way Aleksander resembled a living shadow, especially with a cloak and hood on, bordered on uncanny, but his gray eyes reminded me of his corporeality, if not his humanity.

“You wish to know how it happened.”

I turned to look at him. “Pardon?”

“You want to know how Aleksander Morozova became the Darkling. I’ll answer: through ambition. I believe at some point my vision was very similar to what your friend Lantsov described to you. I imagined a new, brilliant Ravka, with Grisha no longer feared and hated but respected and loved, and I envisioned myself at its head, a shining lord and protector.” He shivered. “It’s hard to stay away from dreams.”

“So how did Nikolai become the Ravkan King and you the Darkling, if your dreams were so similar?”

“They were similar, but I think there was one fundamental difference, a difference you saw between my Grisha and Lantsov’s.”

I thought I knew what he meant. “Your Grisha scorned _otkazat’sya_. Nikolai’s worked alongside them as equals.” I remembered how surprised I was that Nikolai’s Grisha wore sailor’s clothes as readily as the Darkling’s wore their _kefta_. Aleksander nodded, if a bit stiffly. I knew that wasn’t how he would describe his Grisha, but I didn’t really care. Aleksander, with his ability to read people, knew that.

I took a breath. “The difference was that he saw Grisha and _otkazat’sya_ working side by side to make that new Ravka. What you saw…”

“An order in which Grisha were at the top instead of at the bottom. In which the Grisha earned their place in society by the services they rendered the country,” he stated. I was surprised it wasn’t worse. That was an understandable enough goal, if not a completely fair one.

“There’s actually not much wrong with that.”

He looked surprised. “That is an unexpected reply, coming from you.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” I said sourly. “The point is, at some point you were fine, but your ambition made the Grisha superior, instead of inferior. And that, by itself, is fine enough. Do you know what the problem is?”

He fumbled for an answer. “I… I admit that I can’t see anything wrong with that.”

I sighed. There was a lot of work to be done with this one. Why me? Without Mal by my side… I didn’t finish the thought. “In hierarchies, eventually, the higher ranks become too secure. They get cocky, arrogant. And the discontent lower ranks revolt. That’s what was wrong; the very same thing that made you want a Ravka with Grisha victorious was the very same thing you were overlooking.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know I’m not making much sense, but why did you envision this in the first place? I know why, but I’m making a point, okay?”

“The _otkazat’sya_ treated us like witches,” he snarled, and for a moment I think he was back in those days when outed Grisha ran for their lives, hunted and hated and feared. “They were so many, and we were so scattered and scared we might as well have been leaves in a tornado. Even if they did not kill us outright, they treated us as though we were worth less than a mauled coat.”

“Isn’t that how the Second Army behave towards the _otkazat’sya_?” I felt a little tired of using the term, but I plowed on. “Even though they don’t kill them, they treat them as little better than servants. Zoya didn’t hesitate to show her contempt when she thought I was _otkazat’sya_.”

 _Saints_ , I hated this. I didn’t really want to be tramping the street of Os Alta alongside the man who killed Mal, if not directly. I wanted to be soothing the raw edges torn by Mal’s death. But if it meant Aleksander would treat everyone a little better it was worth it. I couldn’t risk Mal’s sacrifice being for nothing.

Nothing! His face was blank. “Saints, you really believe Grisha are superior, don’t you?” I hissed.

“Yes.”

That unashamed, defiant little monosyllable was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Until now we had been strolling rather leisurely through the streets. I caught him by the sleeve and hauled him to the edge of the city, which was quite some distance away, but didn’t matter in the face of my frustration. He was dead weight, but I didn’t care.

Finally I shoved him in one of the alleys. “Tell me why,” I growled, blood roaring in my ears. “Tell me why Grisha are so superior.”

His expression clearly said, ‘ _That’s obvious_.’ “They have the power to manipulate the elements—”

“—bend reality to their will, I get it!” I shouted. “But that power, that ability to summon, to break or heal, to make, all of that is like being born with genius, or extra-keen eyesight! That’s like being born with the genetics to run fast or swim like a fish! That’s like Mal being able to track!” He flinched at the mention of Mal, and I felt a surge of savage satisfaction. I pressed my advantage. “What makes this gift so much better than all the others?”

Aleksander stared at me, and I could almost hear the snap in his head as his logic destroyed one of his most fundamental beliefs. I could almost feel him balking at the concept.

“You said Ilya Morozova was a strange man, Aleksander,” I told him. “Drawn to the ordinary and the weak, just as I was drawn to them. You were wrong, _so wrong!_ The weak are those who rely on their physical power to shield them, and there is no such thing as _ordinary!_ ”

As I spat the words I realized what truth I’d run into. I’d thought I was an ordinary girl, with extraordinary clumsiness, but I was a Sun Summoner, possibly the only one in history. Some would say Alexei— _I’m sorry, Alexei—_ or Mal were ordinary, but Alexei was brave and kind and Mal was a class all on his own.

Ordinary people just didn’t exist. Everyone was unique, so there was no such thing as a status quo, because if you truly looked into each person, you would see the most extraordinary thing—humanity—inside.

“The _otkazat’sya_ are strong, Aleksander Morozova,” I pressed, feeling my whole body thrum with the certainty of what I was saying. The feeling was like Aleksander’s amplifier touch, multiplied by the power of truth. “Stronger than you will ever be. The Grisha are strong, but that doesn’t make others weak.”

His breathing came fast and shallow, and I didn’t care one bit. Let him. Let him be consumed by the knowledge of his own hubris. His head began to shake, as though denying it.

“I know your mother taught you to bow to no man, that you were second to none,” I went on. “But I think I know what she meant. She meant to teach you that you should hold your head high, because being Grisha was a gift, not a curse. She took it too far.” My tone was brutal.

“Stop!” he screamed, his hands over his ears. “Stop talking!”

I was relentless. I pried his hands from his ears and spoke straight into his face, never mind that he turned away and screwed up his eyes. “The gift of being Grisha is amazing, it’s brilliant, it’s _wonderful_ , but it’s just that—a gift! It’s no excuse to act superior, Aleksander. It’s not a title or status or anything. No matter what gifts you have, title and status should be earned. And no matter that you think being Grisha is enough— _it’s not!_ Do you hear me?”

The former Shadow Summoner whimpered softly. He struggled, but my righteous anger was enough to keep him still. Strength surged through my limbs, and I felt that if I wanted to, I could tear him apart. I couldn’t resist a barb: “You’re not Grisha anymore, Aleksander. By your standards, that means you’re nothing. That your life means nothing. Is it true?”

Finally he wrestled his hands from my grasp and snarled in my face before whirling around the entrance to the alley. I stared after him, shaking in rage and longing for my power, if only to express my fury with.

I stormed out of the alleyway and back to the inn, not knowing or caring where the hell the Darkling was.

I marched to the room we shared with Misha, chucked my cloak on the floor, and threw myself onto my bed. I barely noticed Aleksander flinging himself down on his bed, cloak and all. I tried not to meet Misha’s confused eyes, rolling up my sheets and trying to go to sleep.

I wished I could just leave Aleksander alone and let him be. But I couldn’t; like this, he was a danger to himself as well as to those around him, and Mal had kept him alive for a reason. It couldn’t be for nothing.

The silence pressed on my ears.

I wished Mal was here. I didn’t fancy being stuck for the foreseeable future trying to heal this million-piece wreck that had been the Darkling. Beyond that… my future was misty. I’d always just assumed Mal and I would live and die together because that was the way we figured things worked.

_Why did you leave me behind, Mal?_

_I’m fine,_ I told myself. _You can’t afford to be weak right now. Mal gave you a task and you’ll complete it_.

I was _so_ not fine. Tears dripped from my eyelashes as the silence continued, charged with tension. I could practically feel Misha’s uncertainty, Aleksander’s denial. I was suddenly too cold, even with the blankets heaped on me. I curled up, aching all over, but in a way that hurt far more than physically. That precious boy was gone and it hurt like Saints-damned hell.

“Alina.” It was a command, not a call.

“What.”

He sighed, a heavy breath that made me think of a chest constricting, an invisible hand tearing through a heart. “Good night, Alina.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alina, Tolya, Misha, and Aleksander make their way to Keramzin, where the former Darkling summons the courage to say what he thinks must be said.

I started awake with sweat gluing my clothes to my body and my heart racing. Another nightmare. I always forgot them soon after waking, but they kept coming. But I had fallen asleep last night with a new idea burning in my mind and a new purpose in my heart, and I remembered them. I turned to Aleksander directly after breakfast. “I have someone I need you to see.”

“Besides Genya? I doubt it,” Aleksander replied, raking down his black locks. Who knew that the man who had formerly been the most powerful of Grisha had bed-head? The past two days, I hadn’t really noticed it, but after his night of tossing and turning, Aleksander’s hair was as wild as a thorn bush. It was almost funny.

He caught me staring and scowled at me. “What?”

“Your hair.”

“What about it?”

“It’s usually styled. Goes with the all-black air you had going on.” I looked him up and down and tried not to laugh. The Shadow Summoner was tall, but slender and wiry, and in the tunic, trousers, belt, and boots of a commoner, he didn’t look half so regal. And his hair was ruining what little of it he had left. I realized with a start that if I didn’t know, it would be hard to say it was him. He growled and raked it down.

“Are you going to comb it? Or ask for syrup to gel it down?”

“It will sort itself out,” he grumbled, pulling his hood down. I giggled, but stilled when he shot me a dark look—which was probably his specialty.

“One thing’s for sure: with hair like that, you’re unrecognizable. I think I’ll ask Genya to let you keep it.” I had to keep babbling. I was angry last night and I was still slightly annoyed, but first of all, I had to keep my mind off Mal, and second, I didn’t want Aleksander bringing up last night.

“Are you going to tell me who this mysterious person I need to meet is?” Aleksander asked, with feigned nonchalance.

“Let’s go to Genya first.”

We did go to Genya, who was in a new Corporalnik tent on the other side of the camp. She made my hair brown this time, as it had originally been. She touched my lips with a little red, and my cheeks with a little tan, so that I could pass unrecognized. To my triumph, Genya agreed with me on the point that Aleksander’s hair was fine, which irritated him. However, the scars on his face were covered over, and his face was tanned a little as well.

“Genya,” Aleksander began hesitantly.

The Tailor looked at him sharply.

“Thank you.”

Genya looked stunned. I was surprised too. I don’t think he had ever thanked her with such quiet sincerity. Aleksander gave a wry half-smile, and walked out, his cloak flaring dramatically behind him.

I ran up to catch up to him. “What was that for?” I demanded.

His face was shuttered. “I don’t have to answer that. Who are we going to see now?”

“Why did you thank Genya?”

“You did. Should I ask you why you did that as well?”

“I do that normally!”

“And I’m not allowed to?”

I spluttered for a moment before throwing up my hands and growling, “Fine! Let’s go.” I could tell he felt a bit chagrined, not knowing who we were going to see, but I knew he would figure it out as soon as we neared the barracks.

The twins had gotten used to Aleksander’s presence, and weren’t nearly as frightened or wary of him as previously, but they still stiffened and put a hand on weapon if he even looked like he was going to step out of line. I asked if Nikolai was still free.

“He’s probably still eating breakfast,” Tamar remarked. “You’re lucky you were early. He has a schedule so full today that I don’t think he’ll have time to think about it.”

Beside me, Aleksander made a sound that in his context could be a snort. I elbowed him in the ribs, and for an instant our interactions seemed the slightest bit normal as he flashed me his half-smile. Then that instant slipped away and we were the former Shadow and Sun Summoners, walking the halls to find Prince Nikolai.

We passed the outdated maps of the Fold, and I caught Aleksander’s eye wandering toward them. _Good_ , I thought. _Let him know what he did, from the perspective of a commoner._

Nikolai was in the same room as yesterday, still cloistered with papers, letters, and food, although this time the fire was blazing brightly and a few more lamps had been added, lessening the gloom that had been last time I was here.

“Nikolai,” I said. “Is this a bad time?”

The prince flashed a smile. “Never. Changed your mind, Alina? I can’t say I blame you.” Another half-snort from Aleksander brought their attention to each other. I cleared my throat and said, “No, just someone I want you to meet.”

Nikolai squinted at Aleksander’s face in the light. “I think… I _do_ know you!”

I almost cursed right then and there. I’d underestimated Nikolai’s perception. “This is Aleksander. The survivor.”

Aleksander and Nikolai stared at each other until finally Nikolai said, “Come here.” Aleksander, of course, had no choice but to obey, though I could tell it was grating on him. Nikolai studied his face in the light, then turned toward me with such anger blazing in his hazel eyes that I recoiled.

“What is _he_ doing here?” the young king growled. “Isn’t he supposed to be dead?”

I winced. “Nikolai, if it helps, he’s not here to kill you. He’s as powerless as I am.” Aleksander spread his hands in demonstration, and Nikolai’s eyes grew a little less dangerous when nothing happened.

He was obviously tense, though, and his air towards me was one of betrayal. “Why did you bring him here?”

“To teach him a lesson.”

Aleksander made that half-snort, half-huff sound again. “I’m not a schoolboy, Alina. I’m far past lessons.”

I looked him in the eye. “No one should ever stop learning, Aleksander. What I brought you here for is to show you how Nikolai works.” I turned to the young king. “I know I’m asking a huge favor of you, and I know it’s probably in no one’s best interests but his to do it, but he’s a danger to everyone like this, even himself.”

“ _He_ is standing right beside you,” Aleksander muttered. 

“What are you asking, exactly?” Nikolai’s eyes lost a little of the snap in them and got the glint of negotiation.

“I’m asking you to show him your plans for Ravka,” I said, butterflies in my stomach and up my throat. I knew how large of a favor I was asking. I was asking a king who loved his country to lay his plans naked before a former enemy of that country. “Tell him how you’re going to shape the future, Nikolai, even if nothing’s specific. Look at this as a win-win. He learns from you, and you get someone to bounce your ideas off of.”

The hazel orbs glittered as they took in the former Darkling in his simple clothes. “You’re asking a huge favor, Alina.”

“I know that.” I took a deep breath. “Take him to your meetings if you want. Ask him for details on what he did, what could have gone wrong. There’s a lot of information you could get from him.”

There was warning in Aleksander’s tone when he said, “ _Alina._ ”

I rushed on. “He knows this country inside and out. He’s traveled around it for decades, even longer than you. There’s not much to lose by doing it, Nikolai. I don’t have anything to give you in return for the favor, but I’ll owe you one and he has a world of knowledge collected over centuries to show you.”

“ _Alina!_ ”

Nikolai and I both turned.

“What makes you think I would be willing to do this?”

“Because you have to. As a powerless Grisha, Aleksander, you can’t survive with a mentality like that.” My voice was firm. He _was_ going to do this. “You’re going to do it whether you want to or not, because right now you’re so confused you don’t know which way is up and you’re my responsibility for now.” I could tell by his flinch at the last statement that I had struck a chord with him. “Nikolai?”

The young king studied Aleksander. “He’s powerless?”

“As powerless as me,” I said. “He can’t do anything.” Aleksander’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he kept his mouth shut. Apparently, now he knew I could put my foot down, even against him.

Nikolai straightened and sighed. “Very well. I’ll take him for the morning. Come back at noon.” I felt guilty for giving him charge of Aleksander when he was already so burdened, but he flashed me his old smirk.

“I would prefer if you didn’t talk about me as though I was a toddler,” Aleksander said indignantly. I huffed and retorted, “We wouldn’t have to if you weren’t behaving like you were one. Nikolai, are you sure? I can come too.”

“No, it’s fine. You’ve got better things to do than sit at state meetings, even if it’s nothing,” he said, smiling.

Aleksander was harder to persuade, so eventually I decided to come along and make sure he was actually paying attention. In a way, looking after the powerless Darkling felt like babysitting a stubborn child. My chest hurt at the thought of a child. I remembered pudgy little Mal with wild brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, recalled dreams and visions of a little boy with blue eyes and my brown hair.

Two heads bent over a map of Os Alta, one dusky gold and one midnight black. Nikolai was explaining how he was going to merge the First and Second Armies until Grisha and soldiers could work together without prejudice. Aleksander seemed a bit confused at first, but at least he didn’t shut Nikolai down immediately. Just as well.

More than once, uncertain silver eyes flicked in my direction, and each time I nodded in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. To my pleasure, Aleksander asked questions, if questions that hinted at his leanings. Nikolai answered them with all the well-earned confidence and ironclad logic I knew of Sturmhond.

At last, Nikolai’s lunch break came, and Aleksander asked for a piece of paper. When given it, he jotted down a few suggestions and gave it to Nikolai. The former Shadow Summoner plucked at his gloves. “And… thank you, _moi_ _tsar._ ”

I started in shock. Nikolai wrinkled his nose. Stunned silence permeated the room.

“Don’t call me that,” Nikolai said at last. “A king is a stuffy old man in a mantle and crown; it’s princes that have all the fun.” He flashed both of us a grin.

Still, I could tell he was as surprised by Aleksander’s thanks as I was.

When we walked out to prepare for the ride to Keramzin, I asked him why he thanked Nikolai. He scowled so fiercely his eyes crackled like storm clouds rocked by those thunderclaps he was so fond of making with his power. I decided not to press it. Upon arrival at the inn, Aleksander vanished.

* * *

I checked with Tolya. We were all set for Keramzin, with shovels, spades, sheets, paint and brushes, and food and water enough for the journey. Misha was chirpy and cheerful as always, though I found it hard to pay attention to his babbling when Mal was constantly on my mind.

After finishing our business at Keramzin, we would return to Os Alta to give back the horse and cart and to see how much the Lantsov Emerald was worth. I wanted to start my own orphanage where the Duke’s had been razed to the ground. Then it was back to Keramzin and the towns nearby. My plans were neatly laid out, so why did I feel so incomplete?

I watched, bemusedly, as a lightly protesting Misha was lifted into the cart by Aleksander. Of course the boy enjoyed it, even though he was old enough and strong enough to have clambered up himself. I made another plan: if Misha’s mother never contacted us or the twins, I would adopt him.

Aleksander climbed on with surprising agility, which I took back when I remembered he’d likely been hopping on and off of carts for most of his early life. Then I discovered why he’d vanished earlier: he had spent his remaining coins on more water for the group and, of course, treats for Misha.

And himself, apparently.

He nibbled on his third piece distractedly, staring back at the way we had come and ignoring Misha’s protests that their supply wouldn’t last until Keramzin. “Mikhail,” he said. “Here.” He gave Misha the rest of the treats, and curled up in one corner of the cart, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes.

“You have a bit of a sweet tooth, I see,” I remarked.

“I can’t hear you.”

“A—You like sweet things. I always thought you more of a fine fare and _kvas_ kind of person.”

“I’ve always liked sweet things more,” Aleksander answered, sounding far away. “Let me sleep, Alina. My mind will not rest, and there are too many memories, too many emotions…” He shuddered. “I need to sleep.” He sounded as though he was convincing himself instead of me. But I called Misha, and let Aleksander nap in peace.

* * *

When Tolya’s shift ended, I took up driving duty. We had a map, of course, so I tried to let the other three sleep. The former Darkling was curled up tightly in the corner, while Tolya and Misha lay next to each other on the other side. A lull swept over the cart, an idyllic bubble that seemed to surround us despite the buzz of the towns, villages, and marketplaces we passed. My world became the plod of hooves, the snort of the horse, the crackle-and-snap of the cart wheels and cargo, and the warmth of the sun. Tolya snored, and Misha tossed.

I didn’t have Mal to look forward to after this long ride.

I took my lunch alone.

Well into the afternoon, I considered waking Aleksander up for a shift, but the cart jerked suddenly. I swore and focused on not losing my seat. I almost missed it—the strangled gasp, the breath of relief, and the choked-back sob. I turned back, and Aleksander’s eyes glowed like luminous gems.

I could tell he was used to it, as he rubbed his eyes and leaned his head back with a sigh so soft I couldn’t hear it. “You’ve been having nightmares.” It came out more accusingly than I meant it to.

He started, then looked at me. “Yes.”

“What about?” I indicated that he should sit beside me. I tried not to jump when he appeared next to me a minute later. He really was like a living shadow.

He wrapped his cloak around himself. “I don’t have to answer that.”

“Yes, you do. I might be able to help.” Couldn’t he tell that I was already forcing myself to pry deeper into the depths of him? Why did he have to make it harder?

“Give me the map,” he said sharply. “And let me drive.”

Aleksander focused on the road, too intently. I knew it was a mistake to let him have the reins. The pace became a fast clip, not quite a trot, but not walking either. Faster than I had driven, certainly. He clutched the reins in gloved hands clenched so tightly the horse periodically twitched as though to shake him off.

“Aleksander.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Nothingness, like the _nichevo’ya_. Did you know that the Fold and the _nichevo’ya_ were made of the same thing? Living nothingness.” He shivered. “I can feel it, like a—”

“Like a shadow next to your heart,” I finished.

He nodded. “The Fold and the _nichevo’ya_ were born of that shadow. My darkness is… was never like that. It was cool; welcoming me, calming me. The night, to me, was power. Even complete darkness was my home. But that nothingness… it was not just darkness. It was… malicious darkness, if you can imagine.”

I remembered how the Fold seemed to breathe itself into me, how it seemed to lurk like a cat ready to pounce, on silent feet. “I can.”

“Was that all?”

“No.”

I hesitantly laid my hand awkwardly on his arm. “I have to help. I _can_ help. Just tell me.” He jerked, halting the cart abruptly. His eyes flashed gray fire. “Don’t do that,” he snarled. “Don’t act like you care, because we both know you never did. If you want to make me talk, very well. Do it. But don’t  _dare_ touch me as if you care, because you don’t.” Aleksander took a deep breath and started the horse again at a sharper pace than before, frowning thunderously.

I stared in shock, my hand still poised where it had shied away from his arm. My first instinct was to protest, to tell him I did care, but as his words sank in, I realized their truth. I couldn’t care less about him; I could have left him to die if I didn’t have the knowledge that Mal had given up his life to make Aleksander live.

He glanced at me and laughed bitterly. “You’ve been lying to yourself again, Alina.”

We rode in silence as the sky burned red. I felt as though I had been burned as well. Aleksander was right; I had been looking after him without really caring about him. I felt guilty for trying to lie to him when I had told him not to lie to me, and for lying to myself; I felt angry because he had no right to be protesting – Mal had given up our future for his sorry life and didn’t Aleksander know how much I longed for Mal by my side?

In the end, Mal and I were decent human beings, and the Darkling was not.

The red of the sunset faded into violet as it conceded the sky to the onrushing darkness of night. I saw Aleksander gaze wistfully at the shadows thrown in marked contrast from the islands of lantern light from the lampposts in the town. His voice startled me. “Where are we stopping?”

“There’s an inn, there.”

Obediently he drove to the part of town I specified, while I roused Misha and Tolya. Tolya hopped down to get us rooms for the night, and Misha stretched leisurely. He asked Aleksander where we were, and for a moment I was jealous of the boy for getting him to talk so easily.

The boys were to share a room while I got one of my own. Dinner was eaten at a table alive with conversation from Tolya and Misha. I felt detached, as though I was watching through someone else’s eyes. Perhaps I was only tired. As for Aleksander, he chose the seat farthest from the fire, as though he still took comfort in the shadows he could no longer command.

* * *

I lay in bed, trying to push away the numb thoughts of Mal and Aleksander and how all of this worked. I almost wanted to drive a knife into my own heart, just to silence the tumult of emotions and voices in my head.

_Don’t act like you care._

_Just tell me when I can leave._

_Alina!_

_End this._

“Shut up!” I screamed at the voices of Mal and Aleksander, but it came out as a choked whisper. As their accusing whispers reached me, my heart broke with the realization that Aleksander had been bold enough to voice what Mal had been too kind to say: _Don’t act like you care_. I had been neglecting both of them. This time, it was for lack of trying. I had failed to see beyond my own selfish desires—then for the amplifiers and freedom from the Darkling, now for time to grieve and pity myself—to their desires and dreams. Mal more so than Aleksander.

I was supposed to help them. Instead I had ended up making everything worse. Saints, how had I been so blind? I had been so self-centered that I had never noticed how ignorant I was being. I cared enough to go out to the pilgrims, to balk at the idea of using the Soldat Sol’s bodies as Aleksander’s and my own – but I hadn’t cared enough to try to know the people who needed me. I was kinder to those I had never known and never would than to Mal, who had been entwined with me my whole life, or to Aleksander, whose heart had carried scars for likely hundreds of years.

And something else terrified me: if I didn’t care, if I could lie to myself and pretend to care, then how close was I to slipping down the slope Aleksander had gone?

“It’s fine.”

Aleksander’s head poked around the door; it was he who had spoken.

“What is?” I asked miserably. He came in and stood before my bed in his tunic and trousers. “It’s fine that you don’t care. I have certainly done enough to deserve that.” His half-smile twitched at his lips, but I caught a hint of the bitter sardonicism in his tone.

“I should’ve treated you better,” I replied, regret lining my voice. “All of you.”

Aleksander sat at the foot of my bed, and for a moment it was strange, seeing him cross-legged in what passed for pajamas. He cocked his head and turned his face toward the light, which showed off the scars. “You didn’t do that all on your own. As I recall, I played quite a large part.” His mask faltered, and I saw my conflicting emotions reflected in his face.

Rage, grief, frustration, anger, sorrow, guilt, confusion, and, most of all, pain. Both of us were aching all over, and both of us knew it. For an instant, I wondered how correct he had been – how alike were we?

“I’m afraid now,” I admitted. I didn’t care that it was the Darkling I was admitting this to, I just wanted someone—anyone—to know and to take this weight off my chest. “If I can pretend to care, even to myself, then how much better am I than you were?” He flinched, but I plowed on. “It makes me wonder how alike we really are.”

“You’re nothing like me,” Aleksander replied in a fierce whisper. “Alina, you can at least pretend to be all right; you can give yourself time to piece it all back together. You can have your mercy back, and your kindness, and your compassion. Mine were dead and buried long ago, and I can’t even _try_ to pretend I’m fine. I’m tearing myself up on the inside and the worst part is I have no idea why.”

His face was stony, and I raised my eyebrow skeptically. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” I answered, with a trace of my usual flippancy. A pang rose in my chest; I knew I was wrong, even as the words left my lips, leaving a bitter, angry aftertaste. “You’ve lied to me enough, don’t you think?”

He gave me a stricken look and whirled around in a shadow of inky black hair and dusty black cloak, slamming the door behind him. Tolya’s “What?” had me flinging off the covers and ripping into my cloak before tearing downstairs in pursuit of the wraithlike man named Aleksander.

Saints, he was _fast_.

I ducked out onto the street, and not for the first time I wished I could summon. The darkness was illuminated only by stray home lights in windows. The lampposts were dim or hidden, and I cursed when I realized he was nowhere in sight. I ignored the innkeeper’s shouts and Tolya’s confused calls, and listened for the pounding of booted feet. I took a chance and dashed for the closest alleyway.

He wasn’t there. I checked nook after cranny after side-street, and I didn’t find him. I began shouting his name in the hope that he would respond to that if nothing else. I tugged my hood down and ran faster, faster, eyes scanning every pool of shadow for the quartz-eyed Darkling. “Aleksander!”

No sign of him. I took a deep breath to cool my burning lungs and tore in the other direction. I would not let him die, the over-dignified theatrical idiot! Mal didn’t die just so he could rush out and kill himself of cold. I could feel the icy air rushing in my face, whistling in my ears; he would die if he slept out here. “Aleksander!”

Older men and women called out in concern, but I waved them off and pelted down the streets, looking for a cloak that drifted like shadow, for dark hair like thorns. My breath billowed in my face as my entire body begged me to stop. Another man stepped out in front of me. I growled in frustration and crashed past him, calling a generic, “My stupid brother!” behind me. I didn’t hear Tolya running behind me, only saw the near-empty streets in front of me. I raced on and on, crying, “Aleksander! Aleksander!”

“Alina!” Tolya hissed, catching me by the arms. “Leave him; if he wants to die of cold let him.” I could understand why he felt that way—Aleksander had, once upon a time not so long ago, killed some of his close friends and nearly killed me and Nikolai. But didn’t he remember what Mal did?

“Tolya,” I explained in a rush of breath. “Mal saved him by sacrificing his own life—I’m making sure it’s not for nothing.”

I broke away from him and scrambled away, only to be caught up and borne back to the inn with a chest desperate for air and a heart sinking with failure. _I failed you, Mal… I’m sorry_ …

I struggled, and tried to break Tolya’s hold, but the Shu Heartrender was strong enough to hold a weakly struggling Alina Starkov captive until he set me down in front of the inn and herded me back in gently. I met Misha’s confused gaze and sighed, before collapsing on my bed and crying myself to sleep. Both Aleksander and Mal haunted me that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only have so many chapters sitting forgotten on this laptop of mine, so please don't expect this to be complete from the get-go. 
> 
> I might make this a series, with some one-shots involving our remaining trio (which would be Nikolai, Alina, and Aleksander). I actually already kind of have a one-shot lined up for Aleksander's POV on this whole mess. And I won't see this through to the end. I mean, Aleksander is a capital-M capital-E capital-double-S M E S S. It'll be a long time for him to recover.
> 
> If you want to use this AU for any ideas of your own, feel free! Let me know about it so that I can add it to the collection. :)
> 
> Thanks, wolflings!


End file.
